I, Alien

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SCIENCE FICTION LOVES aliens. We’ve had cute aliens, frightening aliens, brilliant aliens, stupid aliens, friendly aliens, hate-filled aliens, lustful aliens, aliens who think and sound just like us, and aliens whom we will never begin to understand.

The true alien is a cipher that doesn’t serve much use in science fiction. If he exists—excuse me: if it exists—it probably breathes methane, excretes bricks, smells colors, reproduces by budding, and has totally different concepts (if it has any at all) of love, hate, fear, and pain.

So, very early on, science fiction writers learned to use aliens as metaphors for various aspects of the human condition—as a funhouse mirror they could hold up to humanity to examine whatever happens to be pleasing or annoying the writer that particular day.

The history of science fiction is filled with aliens, many of whom became more popular than the humans from the same stories. You can go all the way back to Tars Tarkas in the Martian stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs; the whole crew of Second Stage Lensmen in Doc Smith’s Lensman saga; Tweel in Stanley G. Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey”; and on through memorable and beloved aliens created by Eric Frank Russell, Roger Zelazny, Vonda Mclntyre, and dozens of others, right up to Chewbacca in the Star Wars saga.

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